


The Last Thing We Need

by eva_roisin



Series: One Above and One Below [2]
Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Family Issues, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, M/M, Orphans, Past Character Death, Spies & Secret Agents, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-04 14:06:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1781770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eva_roisin/pseuds/eva_roisin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex Summers is reunited with his long-lost brother and must confront the ghosts of his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first time Alex met his brother was in 1966. He was hitchhiking through Pennsylvania on his way to boot camp. He’d just been drafted. 

Scott wasn’t two years old. Alex was twenty-three—a college dropout by then, and a chain smoker. He hadn’t seen his father in ten years, not since the man had left his mother, and she was dead now. His father had a new wife and a new son. The three of them were living in a tract home outside of Lancaster. 

His father had offered him a beer and cigar. “Can’t believe you got yourself drafted,” he said, and the way he said it—tossed-off and unpracticed—that told Alex he didn’t really care. Maybe it would be best if Alex went off to Vietnam and got killed, taking with him the evidence of a previous family, the blond hair and good looks of a woman done wrong. “Couldn’t you get a—what do they call it—deferment?” 

Alex shrugged and said, “It’s too late now.” 

His father’s new wife—Scott’s mother—was nice to him, nicer than anyone had been in a long time. She was young, much too young for their father, and Alex wanted to tell her, _He’s a monster. You should leave._

She had a camera. “I want you boys to be in the picture together,” she said, motioning to the toddler who clung to the edge of the sofa and drooled softly, tested his knees by bouncing up and down. 

Alex just stared at Scott. 

“Well goddammit,” his father said. “Pick him up.”

Alex did as he was told. 

He wouldn’t see this photograph until years and years later. In it he held Scott like a bundle of dirty wet clothes. Scott’s arms were outstretched and his face tilted back to try to see Alex. Alex held the kid in front of his chest and stared into the camera. He did not smile. 

Now it was 1979. Alex sat in a restaurant with Raven. He took the photograph out of his shirt pocket slid it across the table. 

“Jesus Christ,” she said. She picked it up. “Charles gave you this?”

“He did. The boy. My brother. Scott.” 

She raised an eyebrow. 

“Charles pulled him out of some jam and brought him to the school. Guess he’s been in and out of foster homes half his life. Real sordid shit, too. So the last time I’m in town, Charles calls me up, lays all this on me. He’s ecstatic. Says he’s found my long lost brother. Wants me to come meet him. My brother, who’s had this picture on him all these years.”

Raven set the picture down and looked at Alex. “Holy shit, Alex.” She sat back and studied him. “Leave it to Charles.”

“I know.”

“I take it this wasn’t a joyous family reunion?”

Alex shrugged. He couldn’t do anything but shrug. He didn’t want to go into it.

Raven studied the picture. “At least he’s cute as a button.” 

“He doesn’t look like that now. He’s fifteen.” 

“I was kidding.”

“He’s fifteen.” He tried not to sigh, but it was too late. Raven looked like she wanted to grab his hand. “He’s miserable. A miserable fucking teenager. He says he doesn’t blame me, though. He doesn’t blame me not trying to track him down, for leaving him to rot in foster homes all those years after his mom and our dad died.”

“Oh, Alex.” 

“Then he said, ‘Jesus. You’re so old. You’re old enough to be my fucking father.’”

Raven picked up the picture again. “You’re not that old. Or you don’t look it, anyway. You look the same as you did when we first met.”

***

They did this. They got together in big cities when he was on assignment with the Pentagon and she was doing whatever the fuck it was that she did. (He didn’t really ask.) They got together for dinner and talked. Sometimes they reminisced. Sometimes they gossiped about other mutants (Charles mostly).

Most of the time, though, their visits were more purposeful. They traded information. He knew that she didn’t really respect what he did—that he worked for the same government that had killed Sean—but she kept quiet about it and never complained when he provided her with classified information. And he never asked where she got the names and places and locations that he never would have figured out on his own. 

They were good friends, but their relationship was pure commerce. 

They stood outside on North Capitol, he on the street and she teetering on the curb. She also looked the same as she had when they met, and perfectly disguised now as well, her blond waves falling in front of her shoulders. He’d kissed her once a few years ago, impulsively. She’d kissed him back. And then he’d kissed her harder. And then she had pulled back. Looked at him. He hadn’t asked her to change to herself, to her real skin, and he sort of didn’t want her to. He loved her blond, and she must have sensed this. And without even acknowledging that the moment had passed, they withdrew from one another and never spoke of it again. 

“So are you going back to see the little guy?” she asked, her hands in her pockets and heels rocking back and forth on the curb. 

“Probably in a few weeks.”

“You didn’t say anything, so I feel bad for prying. But I assume he’s like us? Like you? I guess he is, or why else would Charles have even found him?”

He leaned close to her so that their faces were almost touching. “The power’s in his eyes.”

“No shit.”

“He has to wear special glasses. Without them he pretty much lays waste to anything he looks at.”

She looked at him. He wondered if he’d said too much. 

“Well,” she said, “Charles must love to see you two back together. He’s all about family.”

“All about it.” 

“I bet he couldn’t be prouder.”

Alex wanted the conversation to be over. “I guess you’re right,” he said. 

***

When Alex got drafted, Charles cried. He blamed Alex. “How could you let this happen?” he said. He sat in his wheelchair and sobbed. Then he threw the half-empty bottle of vodka he’d been drinking at the corner of his office. It didn’t break but spilled everywhere, and that’s when Alex knew that Charles wasn’t going to forgive him easily. 

It sort of _was_ Alex’s fault. He’d flunked out of college. And that was all the draft board needed. It didn’t matter that he had a juvenile record. It didn’t even matter that he was a mutant. They fucking needed more bodies on the ground in Vietnam. 

“All right, we’ll figure this out,” Charles said once he calmed down, wiping his eyes on the back of his sleeve and wheeling himself to the corner of the room to get the bottle he’d just thrown. “I’ll make some calls. I’ll get you out of this.” 

Alex knew that Charles didn’t have anyone to call. By that time his contacts had moved on or disappeared. Too many years in Westchester—too many years running a small out-of-the-way school and coming to terms with the loss of his legs—had made him irrelevant. 

“I’m not putting acid in my eyes or ears or whatever.”

“You’re going back to college.” 

“I’m going to Vietnam.”

“You’re not going to Vietnam!” He spun in his chair. “We’ll send you—we’ll send you to Canada.”

Alex didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Charles knew there was no fucking way he was running to Canada. 

“Couldn’t you have just _tried_ ,” Charles said. “Couldn’t you have just _tried_ at school? You’re not a fucking idiot, Alex.”

“School just wasn’t my gig.”

“You could have made it your gig. But you didn’t. And if you had just tried, now you wouldn’t be—you wouldn’t—” Charles spun away from Alex. Then he wheeled himself to the door to his study, opened it and went out into the hallway. 

Alex sat down in a chair. 

Eighteen seconds later, Hank appeared in the study. He closed the door over. 

In those days Hank was in this in-between point. Still experimenting with his serum, he was sort of figuring it out, and halfway there. So sometimes he’d be the blue man, and other times he’d look normal. Sometimes part of him would be blue—his hands, for instance—while his face would be okay. At this moment he looked normal. He looked like himself. 

But he also looked worried. 

“You heard that?” Alex asked. 

“Everyone heard that.”

Alex shrugged. 

“It’s not about you,” Hank said. “Really, it’s not. He’s angry because my serum won’t take. And Sam Guthrie got called up the other day. Charles feels powerless.” 

“Sam?”

“Like I said, not about you.”

Alex knew a line of bullshit when he heard one. 

“Did you tell Sean yet?” Hank asked.

“No.” 

“Maybe you shouldn’t.”

Sean was at UConn, and unlike Alex he was good at school. He was halfway through his sophomore year, making A’s and loving college. Alex suspected that he had a girlfriend. “I won’t say anything.”

Hank opened the door and disappeared for a moment. When he came back he had a towel. He bent over and started wiping up the vodka. 

“You shouldn’t do that,” Alex said. 

Hank looked up. “Who else would do it?”

Alex didn’t say anything to Sean. But because everyone in the school heard that Alex had been drafted, Sean heard too. Paige Guthrie called him at UConn. The next day he was back in Westchester County. He didn’t have a car so he had to hitchhike the whole way. 

“I’m going with you,” he told Alex. They were alone, standing in the courtyard. Smoking together. “I’m signing up.” 

“Don’t be retarded,” Alex said. 

Sean tossed his cigarette on the ground, turned to Alex and grabbed his face. Held his head between his hands. “You don’t have to go alone. You’re not alone. You’re not doing this alone.”

“Oh Jesus,” Alex said, but he didn’t wrench away. He didn’t even pull Sean’s hands away from his face. Instead he covered Sean’s hands with his own. 

“I mean it,” Sean said, bringing Alex’s face close to his so their foreheads touched. 

And Alex wondered when Sean had gotten good at this—at knowing what to say and how to comfort him. He let go of Sean’s hands and reached for his shoulders. 

Sean let go of his face wrapped his arms around him. He squeezed him so hard he almost lifted off the ground. And Alex let him. “You’re not that tough,” Sean said quietly. “You think you’re so fucking tough. But I know better.”

Alex drew in his breath and held it, trying not to cry but failing anyway. He couldn’t believe how strong Sean had gotten—how much taller and smarter and more sure of himself and more aware. Just three years ago they’d barely known how to dress themselves. And Sean so much was younger back then. He had been just a boy. 

“I’m not letting you sign up,” Alex said, crying against Sean’s shoulder. “That would be stupidest thing I ever did in my life.”

“It’s not your life,” Sean said. “Plus, I figure that I’m going to get drafted anyway. Joining up now means I have more control. You enlist, you maybe get a deal, I heard. You get a better assignment. You don’t just end up on a gunboat floating down the Mekong Delta. If I get to be someone in the army, I could protect you better.”

“You’re not dropping out of school,” Alex said, pulling back from Sean and wiping his eyes. He tried to catch his breath. “It’s for you. It was meant for you.”

“‘ _Meant_ for me’? That sounds like some Charles Xavier bull fucking crud. What do I have to tell you to convince you that it’s not a question? We’re brothers, Alex. I love you. And we’ll survive over there. We’ll be home by next summer. Erik didn’t give us all that Mossad training to let it go to waste.” He tried to laugh. “In fact, I bet boot camp will be nothing compared to that time Erik hogtied us and threw us into the middle of the lake. Remember that? Fucking asshole.”

“I’m not letting you do this.” 

“It’s not up to you.”

“Charles’ll have a fucking conniption. He’ll kill me. He’ll kill both of us.” 

“He’ll get over it. Alex. _Alex_.”

Alex hadn’t even noticed that he was sobbing so relentlessly he was starting to hyperventilate. He couldn’t breathe normally. 

“I’m doing this because I want to,” Sean said, and he threw his arms around Alex again, his hands squeezing Alex’s shoulders hard enough to leave a bruise. “Charles can’t stop me. Hank can’t stop me. You can’t stop me.” He pulled away and took Alex by the arm. “C’mon. C’mon inside. Back to our old room, remember? Charles still hasn’t gotten anyone to fill it. And you need a drink. I know where Hank keeps his stash.” 

Up in their old room, Alex sank onto the bed. Sean disappeared for a minute. He came back with a bottle of Jack Daniels. “Just drink it,” Sean said. “And breathe.” 

Alex took several hard swigs and set the bottle on the nightstand. Then he wiped his eyes with his sweater and lay down on the bed, curled on his side. In a few minutes Sean lay down beside him, facing his back, and draped one arm across his body. 

“You’ll be okay,” Sean said. “You’ll be totally fine. You just need a little time. By tomorrow this whole thing’ll seem normal. Then the day after that even more normal. But you’ll be fine, I promise. We’ll both be fine.”

Alex turned his head to look at Sean. 

“Oh honey, don’t,” Sean said. “You look at me that way, you bum me out.”

“How can you be so sure this’ll be okay?” Alex said, and he wondered how things had gone this way—how Sean had become the strong one and he was now the big blubbering baby. Back when all the terrible shit had happened—when Darwin had died and Angel and Raven had run off and Erik had turned dirty and Charles had lost his legs—Alex had taken it in stride. And Sean had been a real mess, puking and crying at night, drinking himself stupid, falling in the shower when he was drunk. Or hyperventilating when he had a flashback. 

Charles was pretty much useless during all that. Alex couldn’t fault him—he’d just lost his legs for crissakes, and his best friend and sister—so Alex just stepped up and did what he could. And then Charles did find his footing. Put the school together. Rebuilt Cerebro with Hank. But now he seemed to have regressed. He was drinking too much, and whatever optimism he’d scraped together was gone, probably because Raven never came back to him. 

Now Sean gripped his shoulder and shook it gently. “After what we went through in Cuba? Vietnam’ll be a fucking cakewalk.”

Alex rolled over and leaned into Sean. He wanted to kiss Sean then, and Sean to kiss him. The way they used to kiss. Back before Alex went to college. Back in those days they’d messed a bit—nothing to write home about. Both of them had these girls they went with, Paige for Sean and a town girl for Alex. When Alex and Sean fooled around with each they told themselves it was just practice, or blowing off steam. 

He also wanted to tell Sean a lot of other things right then—that his pops had written him a letter. The fucker had a whole new family, a wife and a kid. After what he’d done to Alex’s mother, it hardly seemed fair. But the moment already seemed too heavy. Alex didn’t know how to begin. 

And there were other things he wanted to talk about too. Bigger, achier things. He wondered what they’d do when they were finished with the war. He doubted either of them would go back to college. Or go live with Charles. Charles was such a drag by then, moody and angry. 

Alex had a vision of him and Sean living in some studio apartment in New York above a bar. Sean could play the piano, and maybe he could make a living at it. He could paint too. He had a lot of gifts. Alex couldn’t do anything like that. He’d just work where he could. He’d move rich people’s furniture around. Or deliver laundry. But the thought of this life they might have—this life together—was a comforting thing. And Alex wanted to tell Sean all about it. He wanted to say things like, “I can’t stand the times that we’re apart,” or “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” Real mushy shit like that. No, better he didn’t say it. Better he just let himself drift off to sleep. Better for everyone involved.

Two weeks later, Alex left for boot camp. He made Sean promise to finish out his semester—that was the deal they made. So when the spring came, Sean enlisted. He wrote Alex about it. Alex was still stateside, and Sean was going to Massachusetts. 

Sean never made it to Vietnam. He disappeared from basic training one night that summer, and the news didn’t reach Alex until much later. He was already in Vietnam by then, and there was nothing he could do. A letter came from Hank. Hank wrote that Charles had looked—he’d looked everywhere. (It wasn’t until years later that Alex learned that Charles had been experimenting Hank’s serum then, and that it had started to take. When Sean went missing, Charles’s powers were fading in and out.) 

Alex was trapped in Vietnam then—trapped for six and a half long years. Most kids stayed a year; but most kids weren’t mutants. With mutants, there were no hard and fast rules, and Alex was locked in until the war’s end. 

Sean was labelled a deserter by the US Army—a traitor and a coward. No one cared about him; no one looked. But Alex knew. Knew that something terrible had happened, and that Sean was dead. He just hoped it had been quick. He knew there were a million things that could happen to a mutant, a million ways you could get lost or erased or just plain gone.


	2. Chapter 2

On Friday afternoon Alex pulled up to the mansion. It was raining outside and the tree branches bobbed from the wind. On the seat next to him he had a small wrapped gift for Scott. He sat in his car for a few minutes, finishing his last cigarette and wondering what he was going to say. 

The first time they’d met hadn’t exactly gone well. He’d taken Scott out for bite to eat at Denney’s and the kid had barely spoken to him. And then he did finally speak, and it was bad. “So, I heard you’re like a professor,” he said. He was sort of right about that—Alex taught community college outside of DC, but that just his cover. He wasn’t allowed to talk about what he did for the Pentagon. 

“I’m not like your professor,” he told him over a plate of fries. He couldn’t bring himself to really look at Scott—at the brother he didn’t know. They didn’t look anything alike. Scott was gawky and thin, his face all angles. And because his eyes were covered by his glasses, you couldn’t look at his face to know how he was feeling. He could have been plotting murder underneath those thick-ass lenses. Alex had learned a lot about reading people in the past few years, but he couldn’t figure out how to assess Scott. “I don’t have that kind of degree. I just teach basic physical science to kids who can’t afford or couldn’t get into a four-year school.”

Scott had just looked at him. Again, it was hard to know what he was thinking. Then he nodded and looked down at his plate. 

And that’s when Scott pulled out the picture. “I didn’t know anything about you growing up. Just that you were in the war. When my mom was dying, she said she’d tried to call you. But she couldn’t find you. It was, like, six years ago.”

Alex didn’t want to be having this conversation. Nonetheless, he picked up the picture. 

“You can have it, man. I kept it all these years. I used to show it to the social workers who came by. They thought I made you up. Or that you were dead. I figured you were dead too.”

Alex reached for his water and wished it was a beer. 

“I figured you must have been dead. Or like a P.O.W. Why else wouldn’t you have come to find me?”

“I didn’t know your mom was gone.”

“And then Professor Xavier found me and brought me here. And I’m like, I can’t even see for the first week because of this thing? That happened to me? I don’t know, I can’t remember. My eyes were all taped up.” He motioned to his eyes. “But in the meantime? The professor goes through my stuff and he finds that. And he flips the fuck out. And there you have it.”

Alex put his glass down. He knew he needed to say something—needed to tell Scott how sorry he was and glad he was to finally be reunited with him. But that was just half the truth. He was sorry—he truly was. But he wasn’t happy to see Scott again. He didn’t want a brother. And all those years that he hadn’t looked for Scott—it wasn’t because he thought Scott’s mother was still alive. It was because he didn’t think about Scott at all. His brother had never crossed his mind. 

“I’m sorry, kid,” Alex said. “But I’m glad Charles found you.” 

Scott said, “I don’t really blame you.” 

Alex felt like shit. He picked up the photograph again to keep himself from having some dark thoughts. “You sure you don’t want this?”

“Nah. I had it for years. Your turn.”

***

Alex got out of his car and walked through the rain to the front of the house. When he got there, he didn’t bother to knock. He just let himself in. 

A girl stood in the foyer, her arm wrapped around the bannister. “Who the hell are you?” she said. “Don’t you know how to knock?”

He closed the door behind him. “Sorry. I’m—I used to live here. I’m Alex Summers.”

She squinted at him. 

“Scott’s brother.” 

“Oh,” she said, letting go of the bannister. She hooked an arm through one of the spokes and spun around. “Scott!” she called. “Scott!” She started up the stairs. “Scott! Scott!” She disappeared from his sight. 

Alex stood in the foyer for a second, wondering if he should bother saying hi to Charles. Well, why not. He made his way down the hall. Halfway there, he heard laughter. He figured it was Hank—that the sasquatch had come home for a visit. Just in time, too. He readied his best insult as he approached the door. This time he knocked. When Charles told him to come in, he turned doorknob and opened the door. 

He found himself looking straight at Erik. 

He dropped the package he’d brought for Scott. But in the half second it took him to pick it up, he had composed himself. Just as he’d been taught. He straightened and took in the scene—took in enough detail so that he could relay everything later. Charles was sitting behind the desk and Erik in the chair across from it. Erik had turned his head to look at him, and he was smiling. Then he turned back to glance at Charles. 

“Alex,” Charles said, the trace of laughter still in his voice. 

“Alex, my God,” Erik said, rising from his chair. He extended his hand. “You look fit.”

Alex took it without hesitating. He didn’t even flinch when Erik clapped him on the shoulder. “So do you,” Alex said. “Did you just get here?”

“Recently enough.”

Alex caught a glimpse of Charles from behind the desk. He was sizing things up, reading them both. “Erik is just here for a visit,” he said, and his eyes were full of warnings.

“Look at you,” Erik said. “All grown up.” He touched Alex’s elbow and his smile never faded. He was starting to go gray at the temples. “Charles has told me that you’ve decided to follow in our footsteps and become an educator. That must be such fulfilling work, to teach at a junior college. You must feel like you’re really helping people.”

“I do.”

“You’re such a credit to Charles.”

“I try,” he said. He wondered how much lying Erik could do in the course of a minute. Probably the same amount that he could damage. 

“And your brother,” Erik said. “So much potential.”

That was when Alex stopped playing along. He dropped his hand and just looked at Erik. He glanced at Charles. Then it gripped him fast and out of nowhere—pure hatred. The thought crossed his mind that he might just kill Erik right then, pull out his gun and be done with it. But then he felt it—that small _ping_ where the gun cut into his side, that vibration, that tell-tale sign that Erik knew about the gun. He’d known about it the second Alex walked in the room. Charles probably knew too. 

The smile dropped from Erik’s face. Then it came back. He looked past Alex at the doorway, and Alex turned around to find Scott. “Oh, hi Mr. Lehnsherr,” Scott said. 

“Well there, Scott,” Erik said. “Looks like you’ve got a visitor.”

Alex recovered himself. He tried to smile at Scott. Cleared his throat. “Thought we might . . . go for a spin. Whatever you want to do.”

“Okay,” Scott said. He pointed at Alex’s hand. “What’s that?”

“Your brother has a gift for you,” Erik said, striding across the room and taking a seat in a chair beneath the window. 

Alex understood then how stupid it was for him to have brought a gift. It wasn’t Scott’s birthday—he didn’t think it was, anyway. Bringing a gift just seemed tacky. It seemed cheap. Insulting. 

But he handed it over anyway. Scott accepted. 

“Open it,” Erik said. 

Alex turned to look at him. Then he looked at Charles. Charles returned the stare, sad and knowing and apologetic. 

Scott slowly and carefully tore through the wrapping paper. Pulled out a baseball glove. And Alex didn’t need to see his eyes to know how uncomfortable it made him, how much he hated it. “Thanks,” he said. 

“You’re welcome,” Alex said quickly. 

“Well that’s . . . that’s swell,” Erik said from the corner. “A little off season now, but I’m sure you two can find the time when the weather improves.”

Alex ignored Erik and looked at Scott. Decided to play this off. “I loved to play when I was your age. And that’s—that’s a good glove. Kip leather. It’ll last forever.”

“Thanks,” Scott said again, weighing the glove in his hand. He slipped one hand inside it. “I’ll put it in my room.” He turned to wave to the professor. “I’ll see you later, Professor, Mr. Lehnsherr.” 

Erik raised his hand to wave goodbye and Charles said, “Have a good time.” He looked straight at Alex, and his tone was almost accusing: “Both of you.”

Out in the hallway, Scott turned to Alex and told him to wait while he went to put the glove in his room. Alex stuck both hands in his pockets and tried not to rock back on his heels. He didn’t blame Alex for not wanting to see his bedroom—and quite frankly, he didn’t want to see it anyway. All he could do was fume about Erik. Erik in Charles’s study. Erik. Alex needed to call someone. He needed to call Forge. But right now, in this moment, it was best that he just acted cool. He hoped Charles wasn’t trying to read his mind. 

Scott appeared at the top of the stairs again and bounded down the spiral staircase. For the first time Alex got a good look at what he was wearing—straight jeans that flared only slightly, a cheap fake-looking leather jacket, and a tee-shirt that said “fuck dancing, let’s fuck.” Alex wondered how Scott got away with wearing something like that at a school. He knew that Charles took a rather laissez-faire attitude toward teenagers, but really? Then Alex wondered if Scott wasn’t one of these aggressively liberated queers.

“Where are we going?” Scott said, reaching the bottom of the stairs with a thud. 

“I thought maybe we could go down to the city.”

Scott looked at him. “It’s far.” He tucked his hands inside his pockets and didn’t say anything else. 

Alex wasn’t expecting that reaction. When he was a student at the mansion, everyone wanted to go to the city. They sneaked away to do just that. 

“We could go bowling,” Alex suggested. 

“That’s like a baby’s game,” Scott said. “I don’t do bowling alleys anymore.”

“What do you do now? Discos and strip clubs?”

“I’ll show you,” Scott said, starting toward the door. He opened the door and turned back to face Alex. “There’s like, this arcade on 121? You’d think it would be lame out here, but it’s not. They’ve got all the new games.” 

“Is there a gas station on the way there?” Alex said. He needed to make a phone call. 

Scott shrugged. 

In the car Alex turned on the windshield wipers and backed out of the space. “So,” he said. “When did that Mr. Lehnsherr come to town?”

“I don’t know. A couple weeks ago, maybe.”

“Did Charles say how they know each other?”

“Who? Oh, the professor. Yeah, he said they were old friends.” Scott reached over and flipped on the radio. The sounds of Fleetwood Mac filled the car. “Ugh, gross.” He turned it off. 

“You don’t like that?” 

“All that hippie free love bullshit. It makes me want to puke.” He gave Alex a sideways glance. “You look like someone who digs Fleetwood Mac, though. I bet _Rumours_ was the highlight of your decade. You’re the type.” 

“The type?”

“A hippie establishment type. Were you a hippie when you got back from the war?”

Alex pulled out onto the two-lane highway. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Like, angry at the government, but not really willing to burn it all down.”

Alex studied the road as he drove, trying to remember where there was a gas station. He needed to steer the conversation back to Erik. “Has Mr. Lehnsherr said anything to you? About where he came from or where he’s going?”

“No. Why?” 

“I’m just curious.”

“He’s cool. He says he was _your_ teacher first, and that you were the best student.”

Alex took his eyes off the road to look at Scott. “Does he teach you guys now?”

“He’s tutoring people with their languages. He also does self-defense. Is it true he used to be, like, an Israeli spy? That’s what we’re all trying to figure out. That would be so fucking cool. If it’s true. Is it? Do you know?”

Alex didn’t answer. He found a gas station and pulled up next to the phone booth. “I have to call my boss.”

“On a Friday night?” Scott said. “I thought colleges were closed now.”

Alex hadn’t figured Scott for some natural born detective. “Some schools have classes on Saturday, and I forgot to cancel mine.”

“School on Saturday? Remind me not to go there.”

“I’ll leave the car running. Feel free to find whatever radio station you like.” He got out of the car and jogged through the rain to the phone booth. Shut the door. Dialed Forge.

With a prick of guilt, it crossed his mind that he should call Raven—give her the heads up that Erik was back in town. Thing was, he didn’t know how she’d react. She was a loose cannon when it came to Erik, and he didn’t feel like dealing with her right now. 

“Yeah?” Forge answered. 

“Is this line secure?”

“Where are you calling from? Hold on a sec—” A muffled noise. “I’ll call you back in two.”

“Hurry.” Alex hung up the phone and reached in his shirt pocket for his pack of cigarettes. Fresh pack. He tore it open, shook one out, and reached for his lighter. Scott was sitting in the passenger’s seat. He’d already fooled around with the radio and was sitting back in the seat now, staring at Alex through those creepy glasses. Alex held up one finger. 

The pay phone rang for half a second before Alex picked it up.

“What have you got?” Forge said. 

“Just saw the Hurdy Gurdy Man. Up here in Sleepy Hollow.”

“Jesus Christ. Actual eyes on?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re sure it’s not just some shape-shifter?”

“He was with Charles. I get the sense that they’re . . . chummy again.” 

On the other end of the line, Forge was quiet.

“You still there?” Alex said.

“Jesus Christ. Charles fuckin’ Xavier. What the hell is wrong with him?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Well, what _did_ you do? Did you take stock?”

“Didn’t get a chance. Now I’m off campus with my brother.”

“Goddammit, Summers. Are you really that fuckin’ inept? You make the first Lehnsherr sighting in two years and you leave the scene?”

“What was I supposed to do, shanghai him? I think he made me the second I walked in the room.” He paused and turned so that he was no longer facing Scott. “He knew I had a gun. And I’m guessing that Charles told him about what I really do.”

“He’ll be gone by the time you get back.” There was a muffled crash on the other end of the line. “Shit. X-Factor’s number one target slips through our fingers like fuckin’ water. Charles fuckin’ Xavier.”

“He’s always had a soft spot where Erik’s concerned.” Alex stood there for a moment. “I don’t know if he’ll be gone. I get the sense that he’s set up shop. My brother’s talking like he’s a semi-permanent fixture.” 

“Pump your brother for as much information as you can.”

“What are we going to do?”

Forge was quiet. Then: “Just get me some more information. And Alex, be careful.”

***

At the arcade Scott got a coke and settled in front of a video game. Alex offered to give him money but Scott turned it down, said he already had some pocket money. He put some quarters into Space Invaders, and that was it—that was the death of whatever conversation they were going to have. Scott fixed himself on the game like it was the last thing he’d do. Alex tried to keep talking, but it was clear that Scott wasn’t having it. So finally he slipped off and went to play a couple of games of pinball.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to an arcade. Probably not since the days when it was called a penny arcade, and probably not since before he’d gone to Vietnam. He had a vague memory of going down to Wildwood with Sean and Paige Guthrie and a couple of other kids, and it seemed like a lifetime ago. He shook his head, wondering how it had come to pass that he had a brother who was two decades younger, growing up in a world that Alex didn’t recognize. He’d hated his father all his life, but at that moment he hated him for dropping a kid when he was old enough to be a grandfather. 

But these uncharitable thoughts did nothing to distract him from the fact that he’d just seen Erik; and that Erik was back with Charles; and that Alex was supposed to be spying on them. He didn’t know how any of that had come to pass, either. 

When he got back from the war, he decided to make good on some of the promises he’d made to God while fighting the VC. First, he would go back to school and finish the damn degree he started before the war. Second, he’d figure out what happened to Sean. Third, he’d find Raven and thank her for getting him the fuck out of that godforsaken country. 

Heading back to school proved simple enough. He enrolled at George Mason. The GI Bill covered his expenses and the classes weren’t as challenging as they had seemed a decade before. Finding out about Sean, though, was an impossible undertaking. He went to Massachusetts to ask around. He tried to find Sean’s family, but they were gone. He scoured old newspapers. He asked to see police reports. He asked anyone he could find, anyone remotely connected to the army base. No hits. It was as though Sean Cassidy had never existed. 

And that was when Raven came to him. He walked into his apartment one night and she was sitting there at his table, undisguised. 

“I know you’ve been looking for answers,” she said. “I wish you weren’t. I wish you weren’t looking so hard.” 

He set his books down on the table. Slid into the chair across from her. They did not trade pleasantries; there was no need to. He also knew that there was no real need to thank her for Vietnam. 

“Why do you wish that?” 

She leveled her gaze. “Because if you weren’t looking so hard, I could justify lying to you. I could tell you a story. I could tell you he died in his sleep. I could tell you he overdosed on drugs and got dumped in some pauper’s grave. I could tell you something stupid like that.” She reached for the pack of cigarettes he’d left on the table and took one out. Placed it between her lips and lit a match. “You want that? You want a story? Because if I tell you the truth, there’s no going back.” After exhaling the smoke, she looked at him again. 

He was still. Then he said, “You know what I want.”

She nodded and took another drag. And then she told him. 

When she finished she got up from the table and stubbed her cigarette out in his ashtray. “It’s not your fault, Alex.”

His hands were folded in front of him. He did not look at her. 

“It’s mine. I failed to protect him. I failed.” 

She let herself out. 

***

For the second time in his life he didn’t get through college. Two credits short of a degree in physics, he dropped out. Reconnected with some guys he’d met in the service. They were doing some smuggling—drugs, weapons. Federal offense type shit. He went along with it—not for the money but because he could. 

He did that for about a year. 

In the middle of the night—when he’d be lying in some shithole hotel room in the dead heat of a Georgia or Tennessee or Texas summer—he’d hear Charles calling to him. _Come home_ , he’d say. 

The first time it happened, Alex sat straight up in bed, almost sent a blast into the hallway. Then he went back to bed and sobbed into the pillow. 

The second time he ignored Charles. The third time he told Charles to go fuck himself, rolled over and went back to sleep. The fourth time, though. The fourth time he was in the middle of the desert, sleeping in his truck. When Charles called to him, he got up and went outside and screamed into the night. Let off a few blasts, too. Told Charles what he really thought about him. 

_Whatever happened between us,_ Charles said, _it’s over now. I am sorry, Alex. I wasn’t there for you. I abandoned you—all of you. But you don’t have to suffer any longer for my mistakes. Punishing yourself isn’t the answer._

“You think I’m about punishing myself? You think I’m—what would you say—throwing my life away? It’s not about you, you self-centered, stupid fuck.”

_Come home. Come home and we’ll start over._

“You’re not God,” Alex said. “You don’t get to look into me like this. You don’t have my permission.” He paced behind his trunk, felt sick. He bent over until the wave of nausea passed. His eyes stung. 

Charles left him. 

Alex sank to his knees. He cried then. Collapsed onto his face and tasted dirt. He tried to say, “I’m so sorry, Sean,” but he couldn’t manage it. Why bother, really. 

***

He got pinched outside of Reno. Two highway patrolmen pulled him over and searched the truck. They called the feds. And the feds put him in a holding cell. They wanted him to roll on everyone in the smuggling ring, so he told them to go clear a cell for him in Leavenworth. 

On the sixth day his cell door slid open and a guy walked in. He was wearing jeans and a tee-shirt and some kind of glove on one of his hands. He had dark hair and dark skin, and he looked to be in his late thirties. “Just a minute of your time. Maybe two. And then you’re free to go.”

Alex sat up. 

“That’s right, I’m springing you. Wiping your record clean. All of it.”

“You can do that?”

“You’re damn right I can.”

“Why?”

The man looked down at Alex. “I have that kind of power. And most of the time I don’t use it, but today I’m feeling generous. I’m feeling like throwing my weight around.” He chuckled. “Like letting these boys know that nothing is more sacred than the bond between two people like us. And they’re on Washoe ground, technically.” He laughed again. “They ought to show more goddamned respect.”

“Like us?”

“I’m like you, you’re like me. In more ways than one. I remember you from the war.”

“I don’t remember you at all.”

“I wasn’t in a mutant unit. But we shared the same base from time to time.”

Alex sat back, balanced his ankle on his knee. “Well if you weren’t in a mutant unit, then you got to go home. Congrats. You got a light?”

With a gesture so swift it seemed offensive, the man reached over with one hand and detached the other. He held up the prosthetic hand—the hand that Alex had initially mistaken for a glove. “I can do the same with my leg, but I’ll spare you the indignity.” He reattached his hand. “I’m Forge. And no, no one knew I was a mutant during the war. Until one day they did.” Forge pulled a lighter out of his pocket and tossed it to Alex. “I’m recovering at Walter Reed when some degenerate with a hard-on for mutant DNA shows up, says he’s got a need. The doctors in charge let him take me.”

Alex lit his cigarette, took a drag.

“Could have been you. Really, it would have been if your girl hadn’t shown up in Saigon. You could be sporting these babies right now.” He pushed back his hair to reveal a puckered line along his temple, a very obvious scar. “Goes with my complexion.”

“What do you want?”

“Just to set you free. Give you another chance. How many chances will this be for you? Three? Four? Seems odd that you keep hitting rock bottom and people keep bailing you out. Charles Xavier back in ’62. Mystique in ’73. And you repay them by going back to the same shit life that you swore off before. So add Forge to the list. To the list of people who gave your ungrateful ass another crack at life.”

Alex sat back in his bunk. Who the fuck was this guy? It occurred to him to tell Forge to go to hell—and that he didn’t know the first thing about his life or what he owed anybody. But this was the thing: he was intrigued. As wrong as Forge was, he was also right. Forge had laid him open. He’d summarized his entire life in a few sentences. Alex was both fascinated and relieved. Relieved to not have to lie, relieved to be recognized and castigated. Over the years, he’d gotten away with too much. 

“I’m guessing this is a favors-to-be-named-later type of deal,” Alex said. 

Forge smirked. “Like I said, I just enjoy throwing my weight around. Five years ago I was a sad Indian cripple turned government lab rat. Now I run a special team through the Pentagon. Fully funded and completely legitimate. No one can touch us, not even the president. We’re not subject to anyone’s jurisdiction. Highest possible clearance.” He motioned to the prison hallway. “All these men have to step aside when I show up. Do you have any idea what that means for some indigenous bastard from Wyoming? I pop a chubby every time.”

“Thanks for sharing.”

Forge walked back to the mouth of the cell, put his arms through the bars and leaned. “But that’s not really why I do this. I do this to keep track of the people who would hurt us. The people who hurt me, who hurt your friend, Sean.” 

Alex looked up. Almost lost it. Sean’s name didn’t belong in the mouth of this idiot asshole. 

“Your girl. She does the same thing I do, but off the books. Pure vigilantism can only go so far. And it can be messy. It’s better to be a vigilante under the color of authority.”

“I wouldn’t take anything from you if you had the last goddamn oxygen tank on the way to Mars.”

Forge turned around and smiled. “You think I’m offering you a spot my team? You think I want some shithead college dropout? Some weapons smuggler stupid enough to get caught?”

“Yeah. I think you do.”

“Well, well,” Forge said, sounding like a prissy old lady. And then he went quiet. Dropped his voice. “I guess somebody knows how to call a bluff.”

“The answer’s no.”

“Yeah, I know. You gave everything to the fucking government. Your twenties. Your best friend. And you don’t want to be used again. But I’m not like that. I’m not here to use you. I’m here to let you take some power back.”

Alex knew that was bullshit. 

“I’ll give you some time to think.”

But Alex already knew what answer he’d give the second Forge left the cell. He was about to be used again. And he was letting it happen. This—the fact that he let it happen—was the defining feature of his life. Not the fact that he always wrecked his second chances. 

***

When Scott approached him, Alex was still bent over the pinball machine. He didn’t look up.

“Whoa,” Scott said, sipping his coke through a straw. “That’s a high score.”

Alex let the ball roll down and past the levers. He straightened and faced Scott. “You ready to get out of here?”

“You just—you just let that go? You were winning.”

“It’s just physics. And geometry. I could show you sometime. You want to get a bite to eat?”

Scott shook his head. “I just want to go back to the mansion.”

On the way back, Alex tried broaching the topic of Erik again. “Where’s Mr. Lehnsherr staying?”

“He’s got a room on the second floor. But if you ask me I think he spends most of his time in the professor’s room. We all think that Mr. Lehnsherr is the professor’s boyfriend.”

Alex stole a quick glance at Scott. 

“Or lover. Or whatever people call it. Gross.” He pressed his hands against his thighs. “Not that two guys are gross. I didn’t mean it that way. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with homosexuality, per se. They say you’re born that way, you know. But sex in general is gross. Boring and dirty. This thing that hippies do.”

Alex gave Scott another glance. “Then what’s with the shirt?”

“Oh, you like it? It’s meant to be ironic. Like, ha ha, the one thing that’s more boring than fucking is dancing.” He was quiet for a moment. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Ever been married?”

“No.” 

Scott nodded in approval.

They pulled into the mansion’s driveway, and Alex knew he had to ask. “You want to come live with me? I got my own place in DC.”

Scott pushed his glasses back on his nose. “That sounds swell, but . . . . No offense, but I’m sort of, like, here. The professor’s school is really good. I don’t get called a freak here. And the other kids are cool. And I get these headaches? And the professor can help with that.”

When Alex put the car in park, Scott unbuckled his seatbelt and reached for the door. “But thanks for the offer.”

“It’s always open.” He gestured to the building. “You head on in. I’ll come in to say goodbye, but give me a minute. I’m gonna have a smoke first.”

Scott opened the door.

“Scott, wait,” Alex said. He leaned over. “Be careful around Mr. Lehnsherr.”

Scott was halfway out of the car. He stopped. “Why?”

Alex faltered. If he told Scott the truth about Erik, Scott could just choose not to believe him. Or it might send him closer to Erik, might intrigue him. And despite the fact that he hadn’t ever thought about Scott until a month ago, he felt a pang of protectiveness. “He’s got some issues. Mental problems. Stuff I’m not supposed to talk about.”

Scott leaned down to look at Alex. “Is he a pervert?”

“Oh no, nothing like that.” 

Scott nodded so quickly that Alex wished he’d said yes, that Erik was a pervert. 

“Just . . . be careful around him. He can go off.”

“Go off?”

“He’s got a bit of a temper.” Alex slid his hand along the steering wheel. “Just be careful, okay?”

Scott made a noise of agreement and closed the door. 

When he went inside, Alex took the gun from his holster and put it into the glove compartment. Then he reached for his kit. 

He let himself in the mansion without any fanfare. After checking to see that no one was around, he headed upstairs. He heard laughter coming from one bedroom—the laughter of kids. He heard nothing from another. Then he spotted Hank’s old room. If Erik was staying anywhere—anywhere that wasn’t with Charles—it was in there. He knocked on Hank’s old door. When he didn’t get an answer, he tried the doorknob. And when that was locked, he reached in his pocket for his lock pick. 

Once inside, he closed the door over and looked around. The place was bare except for a small suitcase on the bed. So Erik was keeping his stuff in here, but he was definitely bunking with Charles. Alex opened Erik’s suitcase. Nothing except a bunch of undershirts and a copy of _Anna Karenina._ He felt around the bottom of the suitcase for another compartment, an added layer. Nothing. He took out his pocket camera to take a picture anyway. Might as well have something to show Forge—if only to show him the lack of something. 

When he was done with that, he felt around under the bed, under the mattress. He wasn’t surprised not to find anything. Erik was ex-Mossad. If he had anything of value, it was in his mind. 

He let himself out of the room. 

Erik was standing there, leaning against the doorjamb, arms folded against his chest. “Find what you were looking for?”

Alex closed the door quietly. 

“You didn’t, because there’s nothing to find.”

Alex turned to square off with Erik, but he didn’t raise his voice. “What are you doing here, Erik? Huh? This place is a fucking school. Not some terrorist training camp.”

Erik dropped his arms and nodded. Moved past Alex. “You’d know. You’re moving up the ranks, I’ve heard. First, my room. Next, the search for the guy who held up the 7-11 on route 460. Real government man. Tell me, when’s the last time you’ve closed a case?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Go back and tell your friends at the Pentagon that things are different. I’ve changed. Moved on. Become an educator. A different man. I just want to contribute to society in any small way possible. To make up for the damage I did to Charles. And to everyone else.”

“Stay away from my brother.”

Erik waved his hand in front of his face. “Your brother’s fine. Has four times the wit and intelligence that you had at that age.”

“You didn’t know me at that age.”

“Fine then. He has more wit and intelligence at 15 than you did at 20. Or 25.”

“I don’t want you poisoning his mind with all that mutant supremacy bullshit.”

Erik laughed to himself and looked down. “A month ago you didn’t care that you had a brother. But I cared. I’m the one who brought him to Charles’s attention.”

“I swear to God,” Alex said. “You don’t get to look at him.”

Now Erik laughed openly. He didn’t bother disguising his contempt and condescension. “Oh, Alex. To hear you talk. Here I thought this X-Factor gig was just some layover for you. Now I find that you take it seriously. Strange, because in the past three years, four anti-mutant war criminals have gone free, two of them to resume the work they were doing before the end of the war. Let me let you in on something: X-Factor is a joke. Pointless. Another example of American bureaucratic bullshit. If the Mossad thought the way you people do, they’d still be looking for Eichmann.”

“What do you want?” Alex said.

“I want you to get a message to Mystique. It’s important.” 

“Blow me.”

“Fine then. I guess she’ll have to come to get the message herself. You can tell her where I am.”

“I’m not telling her anything. You can get in touch with her.” He slipped his kit into his back pocket. “Since you already know everything.”

“She doesn’t want to see me.”

“I wonder why.”

Erik frowned. “Alex, as much as you don’t like me, I have to tell you that I am really trying to help. There are mutants still being experimented on. Too many, I’m afraid. And I would like to stop this in any way I can.”

Alex reached in his pocket for his notepad. He dashed off a phone number and contact information. “You want to make a statement? Provide information? Just call that hotline. We follow up on all charges of abuse against mutants.” 

“Good thing, too. Since these issues concern your brother.” He took the paper from Alex and tucked it in his pocket.

“What did you say?”

“Your brother’s powers have proven very attractive to a lot of government types. Doesn’t Forge know this? Well, I’m sure he’s got his reasons for keeping it quiet. Either that, or he’s not worth the salary they’re paying him.” Erik’s eyes darkened. “You are getting paid quite a bit, am I right? I suppose you have to do what you have to do, though. But I’d never accept blood money.”

Without thinking, Alex drove him against the wall and held him there, using his forearm to pin Erik’s neck. In a barely audible voice, he said: “Let me remind you a few things you seem to have forgotten. You’re a war criminal. You’ve just been located by a member of X-Factor.” He pressed down harder. “If I tell you to stay away from my brother, the only words out of your mouth are, ‘Thank you for letting me know, sir. And what else can I help you with today?’”

Erik’s glance slid away from Alex. Alex turned to see that Charles had come up from behind him. He stepped away from Erik, straightened his shirt. 

“Alex was just showing me how they do it here in the states. In the Mossad we had a much more effective chokehold.” 

“Alex—” Charles began. 

Alex took a step toward Charles. Looked down at him and tried to keep his voice low so that the kids wouldn’t hear. “I have something I want to ask. I want to know how someone so fucking smart can be such an idiot.”

“Alex, things are different now.” He paused. “Whatever’s happened between you and me . . . and Erik . . . in the past, we can put that right. We’ve all changed.”

“Put it in a postcard.” He blew past Charles and headed to the staircase. Then he turned around. “He’s not different. He was just dangling a whole lot of information that could save lives, but not for free. For Raven’s location.”

Charles turned his chair around. “And what were you doing?”

Alex gave him one last glance and then bounded down the stairs. 

It wasn’t until he was in the next county that he realized he’d forgotten to say goodbye to his brother.


End file.
